Surprises are the cherries on top of the cake of life (or something else if you don’t like cherries). They can brighten up your day because they show that the one giving them has taken the time to think about you and therefore are so cherished. They are the little moments you would like to have all the time and as a movie watcher I enjoy it when a movie is able to surprise me. I make sure movies are able to do that to read as little about them as possible and not watching trailers and for this movie, The Company You Keep I knew nothing. I knew Robert Redford and Shia LeBeouf were in it because they were on the cover, but as I was watching I was treated to one nice surprise after the other.
Robert Redford not only stars, but also has directed this movie (which is his 9th one) and has been able to get an amazing list of actors and actresses together to appear in this movie. Scene after scene I was thrilled to see another well-known actor play a role (some smaller than others) and this kept happening all through the movie. Susan Sarandon, Anna Kendrick, Stanley Tucci and Richard Jenkins are just a few examples, but there are many more. It’s a funny thing, but seeing familiar faces can really add to your enjoyment of a movie. Of course it is the reason why some actors get payed so much, because the general audience likes to see them and buys tickets. If you walk into a party and you don’t know anyone you won’t be as comfortable as when people you have seen before are present. As you know I watch all type of movies, also ones not starring well-known actors, but with this movie it was a joy to be surprised by the appearance of those actors/actresses.
You might be wondering though: “That’s all fine Nostra, but what is this movie about?” It is about former members of the Weathermen, a radical left organisation who protested against the Vietnam war and tried to overthrow the government. A couple of them have been on a “wanted” list for years and when one of them is captured over 30 years later the other ones are also in danger of being discovered. Ben Shepard (Shia LaBeouf) is an investigative reporter who looks into the case and wants to question a local lawyer, Jim Grant (played by Robert Redford) who has declined to do the case. Once he starts investigating he finds out that Grant might have a reason to not take part in the case. When he disappears with his daughter he decides to follow the breadcrumbs and track him down. He’s not the only one doing so however.
I thought The Company You Keep was an enjoyable movie, with enough unexpected twists to keep you guessing where it was all going. The appearance of all those actors only added to my enjoyment, but I have to say the journey was more interesting than the destination, which I thought was extremely disappointing. Although he movie is partly based on some true events, it is obvious this is a work of fiction. Because of its ending I really didn’t take away too much from it, but it was an enjoyable time waster.
Marilyn Armstrong‘s insight:
Sounds like a good one. At the very least, good entertainment.
LOS ANGELES — Oscar voters will no longer be required to see certain nominated films in a theater to cast their ballots.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced Saturday that members will be mailed DVDs of documentaries, shorts and foreign language nominees – categories that don’t typically get lengthy stays on multiplex big screens.
President Hawk Koch says the move is an effort to expand member participation by giving voters as many opportunities as possible to see all the nominated films.
Prior to the final round of voting, the academy will mail members DVDs of films in Foreign Language Film, Documentary Feature, Documentary Short Subject, Animated Short Film and Live Action Short Film categories.
I have acquired a goodly number of sweaters over the years. This is New England. Winters are long. Heating oil is expensive. Sweaters fill the gap.
This morning I noticed most of my sweaters are purple. I’ve got a few in black, a couple in red. But over all, purple dominates. The sweater collection used to be mostly black. I’m from New York where women wear black. It’s a thing. A co-worker in Israel once told me I dressed like a nun. I could never wear the bright colors she wore. I’d feel like I was dressed in a neon sign and I’d have to wear sunglasses all the time.
The purpling of my wardrobe occurred gradually while I wasn’t paying attention, one sweater at a time … a lavender cashmere here, a dark purple merino there. The seasons passed until my wardrobe was awash in purple.
If you surmise from this that I love purple, you’d be wrong. While I have nothing against the color, the plethora of clothing in purple signifies only that purple is a color frequently remaindered at clearance time … and it is the most acceptable (to me) of the frequently left over hues.
Purple sweaters scream “final mark-down.” One of the perils of waiting until the end of the season is the selection of colors and sizes is limited. As a habitue of end-of-the-season sales, I know what to expect. Lots of purple, white, orange and some nasty shades of green in which no one looks healthy.
Leftovers also will include whatever “specialty colors” designers were sure would be the next big things. These colors are inevitably named after fruits or veggies. They never sell well, so there are plenty of whatever it was in the clearance aisle. All the normal, neutral colors are gone, but you’ll find fruit salad: cantaloupe , mango, kiwi, aubergine, honeydew, sugarplum, pumpkin, mocha and vanilla bean are among many recent attempts to boost the popularity of familiar colors by giving them fruity new names. The problem is, we all knew they were tan, and orange and coral and lavender, so people who like those colors bought them. New names did not make any old color the next big anything.
I’m a big fan of neutral colors. In addition to being essentially conservative where color is concerned, I spent many decades working and commuting. If I wanted to have a life outside of work, dressing had to be fast, mindless.
Neutral colors are the backbone of a working woman’s wardrobe. If almost all of your clothing is black, grey, off-white, taupe, brown, or khaki, putting together an outfit is a piece of cake. Grab a top, grab a bottom, attach earrings to lobes and voilà. It’s a go-anywhere wardrobe for the fashion-challenged. In other words, me.
The years rolled on. I stopped working and I didn’t have much money to spend on clothing. The percentage of purple and orange in my wardrobe rose accordingly. All of this goes to explain the orange dress in my closet. I’ve had it for almost a year but the tags are still attached. It was a 2011 leftover bought the spring of 2012. It’s still waiting to be worn as the spring of 2013 approaches. My problem? It’s not black. I’m not sure I’ve ever worn a winter dress that wasn’t black.
So this lovely garment — a nice soft color, not one of the putrid glowing ones — is still in the closet waiting for its first public appearance. I suppose I could have worn it to one of the parties I went to in December, but I wound up, as usual, wearing black. I fit right in. Boston women wear almost as much black as New York women. It must be a Right Coast thing.
Although a shortage of money has elevated and honed my bargain hunting skills, I have always been a bargain shopper. As far back as I can remember, I’ve looked for final sales and closeouts, even when I wasn’t strapped for funds.
It’s a family tradition. My mother raised me to hold fast to one unyielding principle: Never pay full price.
I have always taken pride in scoring a really great buy. You aren’t supposed to brag about how much you pay. You’re supposed to brag about how much you didn’t pay. The less you pay, the greater your bragging rights.
I was astonished to discover that some people are proud of paying a lot for something they could have gotten for half off if they’d waited a couple of days. That’s weird, don’t you think? Okay, they might have had to get it in purple or orange, but think of all the money they’d save!
Would I have different attitude towards shopping if I were rich? Maybe, but mostly, I don’t think I’d change much.
To put it in perspective, back in the early 1990s, I got into a tug of war with Carly Simon for possession of a 70% off clearance sale silk blouse in a very chi-chi shop in Oak Bluffs on Martha’s Vineyard. The blouse was orange.
I won. It was a fantastic blouse.
Bargain hunting is not just for people on a tight budget. For some of us, it’s a contact sport.
Philip Seymour Hoffman, as Robert Gelbart Christopher Walken, as Peter Mitchell Catherine Keener, as Juliette Gelbart Mark Ivanir, as Daniel Lerner Imogen Poots, as Alexandra Gelbart Wallace Shawn, as Gideon Rosen Anne Sofie von Otter, as Miriam.
Garry and I watched A Late Quartet yesterday evening. I had purchased it from Amazon a few weeks ago after reading some very good reviews. It sounded like a movie for grown-ups and there have been a dearth movies that don’t star fresh-faced children. It turns out the reviewers were right.
It’s a lovely film. If anyone is a “hero” in this film, it’s Christopher Walken who plays against type with elegance and grace. Add Marc Ivanir, who usually plays Israeli heavies on NCIS and other crime shows (he actually is from Israel and is an actual hero) as the dedicated and ever so slightly demon-haunted violinist, plus Phillip Seymour Hoffman doing his usual workmanlike job and Catherine Keener on viola and as “could be better” wife to Hoffman’s second violin It’s a great mix of characters and some of the best work done by Walken and company.
Their movie musicianship is realistic. I know they were not actually the group used to produce the sound track but it looked to this ex-music major as if they knew their way around string instruments. Some may have had some early training, others were coached for the movie. Whatever the means, it enabled the cinematographer to follow the actors’ movement closely, without resorting to long shots that disguise the real identities of the performers. Well done.
While doing a little side bar reasearch on the stars, I discovered — entirely to my surprise — that Walken actually attended the same college as Garry and I and probably was there during one of Garry’s years at Hofstra University. He was only there for one year and left for a gig in an off-broadway show, but it was news to us that he’d been there at all.
It is one of the many ironies of Garry and my education that most of Hofstra’s most famous graduates are not graduates, but attendees who left before getting a degree to begin highly successful careers. We had a very good drama department and perhaps the biggest measure of its success is how many of the students in the program were “discovered” before they got degrees and went on to fame and fortune without benefit of that all-important piece of paper.
Although it doesn’t hurt if you know some classical music and particularly, if you understand the cutthroat world of classical performers, but if you don’t, you can still enjoy the movie.
The plot? It’s the 25th anniversary of “The Fugue”, a classical string quartet. The world is catching up with them. Christopher Walken, their cellist and oldest member of the quartet has been diagnosed with Parkinson’s and needs to retire. The first violinist is in love with the second violinist’s daughter, and the second violinist wants to be the first violinist … and sex in the form of “oops” infidelity adds enough spice to imperil the survival of the quartet if the rest of the problems were not enough.
Walken as the sensible, down-to-earth member of the group, dealing with his own burdens and unwilling to tolerate the childish carryings-on by the other performers, is wonderful. “The Fugue comes first,” he says, or words to that effect. It’s interesting to see Walken cast as the stable, adult, and not even slightly crazy member of the group.
The music — especially Opus 131, the late quartet — is magnificent. I’ve rarely heard this piece performed. It’s an exceptionally challenging piece of music, written when Beethoven was already swathed in silence by the loss of his hearing, yet still able to hear it in his head and write some of the most advanced, complex and intense music of his life.
I admit to being inclined in advance to like this movie. I love the music, studied classical music for many long years. I love Beethoven, probably my all time favorite composer, whose music I play as I drift off to sleep at night and whose symphonies have been my companion on many journeys throughout my life.
It did not disappoint us. It’s not a light piece of fluff, nor is it depressing or hopeless. Problems come, problems are addressed, problems are resolved. Not everything has a happy ending but within the limits of what is possible, these adults work out their problems, musical, health, personal and relationship, like … adults.
It is a nice change from watching stupid kids running around like stupid kids, clearly clueless about life and from the looks of things, not likely to become wiser assuming they manage to survive to grow older.
It’s very much worth a couple of hours of your time, if just for the music. But it is really better than just the music. The DVD is available on Amazon (which is where I got it) and the soundtrack is available separately.
“Mitch”, as TCM host Robert Osborne called him, was a much underrated actor.
Huston, according to Osborne, said of Mitchum “… He’s one of the finest actors I’ve ever worked with … of the caliber with Olivier, Burton and Brando”.
I met “Mitch” when he was shooting Friends of Eddie Coyle in Boston. I’d been warned not to bother him. He turned out to be a terrific guy. He gave me a great interview.
Then, we moved to a seedy bar — at Mitchum’s suggestion — for an afternoon of drinks and gossip. It was obvious he cared about acting, but ” a job was a job. It was okay as long as the film company’s check was good”. He wound up doing a memorable job as a less than heroic figure in Friends of Eddie Coyle.
If you haven’t seen it, you need to watch “Mitch” co-starring with Deborah Kerr, Cary Grant and Jean Simmons in The Grass Is Greener. Old heavy eye lids more than holds his own in this clever comedy
As for Deborah Kerr, I was, like most film mavens I knew, madly in love with her. She came to Boston to do a stage play. She was courteous to all the media, including one gushing friend who did the closing lines from Tea And Sympathy in her dressing room. She told the film crew to make sure they “got my good side”.
It didn’t matter to me. I was transfixed. Now, back to Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison.
It’s been more than a week since I finished reading the Bert Lahr biography, “Notes on a Cowardly Lion“, written by his son, John. I am still emotionally involved. Why?
Why does a book written more than 40 years ago about a show business figure who peaked more than 70 years ago still sit front and center in my mind? I’m a retired TV and radio news reporter with more than 40 years in “the business”. The “news biz” is journalism, but it’s also performance, even for those of us who strive for objectivity.
Part of the job is celebrity too. When you appear on television five or six days a week for more than four decades, you become a household face. People ask for your autograph. You receive special treatment in stores and restaurants. Twelve years into retirement, folks still recognize me, tell how they grew up watching me on TV and ask for autographs. Mine is a regional celebrity although I’ve encountered fans almost everywhere I’ve travelled in the United States and overseas. I’ve always enjoyed and appreciated my celebrity. Yes, I miss it a bit when I’m not recognized but I don’t get depressed if I go unnoticed. I needed to share a little of my life because it puts my feelings about the story of Bert Lahr’s life into perspective. I really understood in a very personal way where the man was coming from.
I enjoyed the biographical side of the book. It speaks to history, the history of vaudeville and burlesque, show business venues that are frequently misrepresented. As a self-proclaimed trivia maven, I received a little education. Case in point: Clifton Webb, long perceived as a middle-aged effete, film actor actually was a well-received song and dance man in vaudeville. I learned the difference between vaudeville and burlesque. I came to appreciate the art form of what I used to perceive as Bert Lahr’s overly broad slapstick comedy. I understood how Lahr’s art form suffered at the hands of Hollywood film directors who tried to minimize his well honed craft and squeeze it into their movie concept of musical comedy.
Lahr’s comic genius never really had a chance to shine in Hollywood. “The Wizard of Oz” was the exception. But that success also spelled disaster in Tinseltown because Lahr never again received a film role like the Cowardly Lion. Years later, he would find similar frustration with television which tried to restrict his comedic moves in variety shows. Lahr didn’t think much of TV comic legends like Milton Berle and Sid Caesar. Ironically, both Berle and Caesar spoke highly of Lahr in lengthy interviews with me — even as they lamented the fading of their celebrity. But that’s another story. Back to Bert Lahr. Born into poverty, Lahr was always very conscious about being financially secure.
Even when he returned to Broadway where he found his greatest success over the years, Lahr never felt financially secure even though he was earning top star salaries. In later years, as a TV pitchman for Potato Chips, Lahr earned more money for a thirty-second commercial than he ever did for starring in a play, movie or TV special. He still didn’t feel financially secure.
Bert Lahr did find some unexpected late professional success with surprising turns in work like “Waiting For Godot” co-starring with the likes of E.G. Marshall. Lahr savored critical acclaim, but was never satisfied even when he received it. For all of his professional and financial success, he was an unhappy man. He was insecure as an aspiring comedian/actor seeking stardom. He was insecure as a star thinking others were always trying to undermine him. He was insecure as an aging, respected legend believing people had forgotten him even though he was recognized everywhere he went. Lahr was miserable as a husband and father — demanding but not giving. Lahr desperately needed the audience — the laughter, the applause — throughout his life. Sadly, he never appreciated the love and admiration he got from his family.
As the curtain closed on his life — with his loved ones gathered around him — Lahr still longed for his audience and their laughter and applause. He couldn’t let it go and move on, nor appreciate the good things life offered him. Lahr’s loneliness haunted me. The deeper I got into the book, the more painful I found reading his biography. I know first-hand how intoxicating and addictive celebrity is, especially when you fail to appreciate real life. Bert Lahr was never able to see the joys and sorrows of family and friends as “the real thing” that makes it all worthwhile. It’s the celebrity that is unreal and ephemeral.
It’s the people who love you who will sustain you after the curtain closes and the audience departs the theatre. That Lahr was never able to recognize what he had and accept the love that was there for him was his personal tragedy.
It’s a fine biography, but not a joyful reading experience. It is in many ways a cautionary tale, a reminder of how important it is to keep ones perspective and ones feet on the ground.
Okay. This is the first Oscar show I’ve ever seen that was really funny. Seth McFarland was good. “We saw your boobs” must be the funniest song to ever open the ceremonies.
Otherwise, it was an interesting year. A couple of expected wins — Daniel Day-Lewis as Best Actor for Lincoln and Argo for Best Picture — but Life of Pi, which nobody picked as the big winner of the evening did very well … and Lincoln didn’t do nearly as well as expected. Overall, they spread the goodies around … and managed to produce a genuinely entertaining broadcast.
Playing the theme from Jaws when Oscar recipients wouldn’t shut up was hilarious and they physically ejected at least one awardee.
The show still ran past midnight, and here I am to tell you about it … at nearly 1 in the morning
It was good. I didn’t expect it, but it was really excellent. Just when I was about ready to give up, they went and made it better. And Michelle Obama giving the Oscar for best picture? How cool was that?
I need to mention the Grey Poupon advertisement. This is great stuff.
Not only the funniest Oscar opening, but the best advertisement in many a long year. Have fun and sleep tight.
I’ve met a few celebrities over the years, mostly because I’m married to someone who used to be a reporter and whose job it was to talk to people, including a fair number of celebrities.
However, the first celebrity I ever encountered was entirely accidentally. I was working in an office at the Steinway building in New York which is down the street from CBS Studios. It was 1967 and “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” was being finished at the studio up the road.
Every lunchtime when I went to get a bite of lunch. There was Sidney Poitier on his way to lunch. He was really tall. I’m short, so tall people — even unknown ones — tend to leave me overawed. And like the cherry on the top of the sundae, he was so handsome.
We crossed paths at least a dozen time during a three-week period and never once did I have the courage to do more than look yearningly in his direction. Later, I could think of lots of cool stuff I could have or should have said to him. Unfortunately, I didn’t say anything at all. Other people stopped him and asked for autographs or at least to say that they loved his work … but there was now way I would do that. Uh uh. Not me.
The area was crawling with movie stars. One day, at the deli where I ate lunch … which is where everyone ate lunch because it was the only fast lunch place on West 57th street … I found myself sitting next to George Hamilton who was, 55 years ago, so good-looking he didn’t look quite real. What did I say to him? He was right next to me at the counter, sitting on one of those rotating stools … inches away.
“Pass the ketchup, please?” I squawked. It was the only thing I could think of and there’s a very small chance our hands brushed during the transfer.
A few years later, when Garry and I were seeing each other for what I think was round 2 or 3 of our long courtship (which, I should add, began on 57th street when he was at ABC Network, up the road at Columbus Circle), he took me with him to the première of the “Midway” starring Charlton Heston and Henry Fonda. There was a screening of the movie in the evening; the following morning, we would all attend a brunch where reporters would have opportunities to meet and greet, as well as interview the stars.
I briefly met Henry Fonda, but he wasn’t a chatty kind of guy. Mostly, I was really impressed by his eyebrows. He had eyebrows like wings. If he could have flapped them, his head might have taken off from his shoulders. As it was, he murmured a couple of words and moved on to the next table.
Charlton Heston — in his pre NRA days — was a very different experience. I was surprised he was so unprepossessing. Just a big, pleasant, rather sweet guy who looked exhausted. He went out of his way to be nice to me. Garry later told me that Heston was always very gracious, always making a special effort to not ignore the “little people” who are normally overlooked at these celebrity occasions.
I remember the interview. He said, as apparently he always did, that he was a very lucky guy and for that reason, his nickname among reporters was “Lucky Chucky.” Mostly I remember that he said the most important thing an actor needs is the ability to sleep on airplanes. It gave me an interesting view of what “the life” was really like. In fact, he didn’t look like he was entirely sure what city he was in. A very tired guy, but a nice one.
In Israel I interviewed a lot of people who were then or later became internationally important, but Israel was different. It was a very small country. It wasn’t unusual to meet important people and important people didn’t act important. Somehow, it didn’t seem like really meeting a celebrity.
When we spent time on Martha’s Vineyard there were a great many famous people of every kind … writers, artists, actors, politicians. There was an unwritten but unbreakable rule on the Vineyard: don’t bug the celebrities. One of the reasons famous people love the Vineyard is because they get to be regular people while they are there. No one mobs them for autographs or stalks them on the beach. We met and got to know Patricia Neal. She and I exchanged gripes about ex- husbands.
And then, Garry did a feature on Lois Maillou-Jones, a well-known artist and Alfred Eisenstadt, my personal favorite photographer, both of whom were receiving Presidential Medals of Honor.
Martha’s Vineyard (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
You could say that Eisenstadt was the man who taught me photography. He didn’t know he’d taught me. I’d gone to the Vineyard for the first time in 1965. I’d come with my first husband right after we got married … a miniature Honeymoon. We stayed at the Menemsha Inn, which was where Eisenstadt stayed every summer. Books of his photography, especially photographs of Martha’s Vineyard, were all over the Inn.
I had just gotten my first camera and was about to shoot my first rolls of film. After looking at Eisenstadt’s studies of the Vineyard, I set out to reproduce his pictures. In the course of the week we spent on the island, I found where he had taken each of his landscapes, where he had stood, the position he’s been in to get that particularly perspective. I managed to reproduce almost all of them and come up with a few originals of my own. I was 18 years old. I fell in love with cameras and photography and have remained so ever since.
To actually meet Alfred Eisenstadt in person was a big deal for me. He was in his early 90s and while far from senile, like most older people he forgot things. Yet, if he looked through a book of his photographs, he could remember what camera he was using, what film he had in the camera, which lens was attached. He could remember the f-stop at which he shot and why he took the particular picture, what had caught his eye.
He literally could remember every pertinent detail of every photograph, many of which had been taken 50 or more years earlier. Before he passed on 5 years later, we got to know Eisie pretty well and I got to spend time with him. He was a good talker. He talked, we listened. I learned.
I feel obliged to point out that not once during any of these encounters did I say a single brilliantly witty thing. Not merely did I not say anything memorable, but I never said much of anything.
I am not normally tongue-tied, but each time I meet a celebrity, especially one I really admire, I can’t say anything. Historically, I just stand there like a stuffed dummy making gurgling sounds. I did have a bit of a tug of war with Carly Simon over possession of a clearance sale blouse at “Laughing Bear” on Circuit Avenue in Oak Bluffs. We didn’t talk at all. She pulled. I pulled. She had height on her side; I had grim determination on mine. I got the blouse. She could have out-talked me, but fortunately for me, no words were required.
Finally, I got to meet President Clinton and family twice. When up close and personal with a U.S. President, most people find they have nothing to say. It’s not only the man; it’s the office, the aura of power that goes with it … and on top of that, William Jefferson Clinton was a big, handsome guy in whose presence I would likely have been awed even if he weren’t the Prez. As it were, I believe I squeaked out “You’re the President; I’m not,” and where that came from, I will never know.
I’ve crossed virtual paths with more than a few authors whose work I greatly admire and done slightly better because it’s Twitter or email so I am cloaked by cyberspace … but it doesn’t help all that much.
It turns out that my behavior is not unusual, that most regular people, in the presence of celebrity and power have one of two reactions: stuttering and/or wordless stupidity, or motor-mouth gushing. I’m not sure which is worse (I apparently tend toward wordless stupidity, no stuttering required), but either makes you look like a moron.
Fortunately, stars are familiar with these reactions. They are aware the effect they have on “civilians” and do not necessarily assume we are babbling idiots or mute. They just assume we are star struck. And that’s what we are. Star struck.
Just once, I’d like to meet someone I admire and find myself able to speak and even have something clever to say … something erudite, witty, memorable. I live in hope.
With camera in hand, exploring European lands, cultures, food, and drink...mostly with a plan, but sometimes enjoying the adventure of just getting lost.
It’s been more than a week since I finished reading the 
